Current issues in economics

Tag Archives: Brexit

Another very informative clip from the FT. Some of the salient points include:

Since the global financial crisis the Bank of England, US Fed, Bank of Japan and European Central Bank have bought assets and printed US$12 trillion.

Can interest rates return to what has been normal in the past – say 5% instead of close to 0%.

US Fed plans to shrink its balance sheet later this year – monthly reduction US$6bn in its assets. But this is a very small amount when you consider that the Fed holds US$4.5 trillion

But this is not happening elsewhere. Bank of Japan and European Central Bank are still printing money and buying assets. With Brexit the Bank of England faces huge uncertainties regarding their balance sheets.

Interest rates will remain low partly due to: ageing population, low productivity growth and a savings glut. This has reduced the attractiveness of capital spending.

In light of what has been happening in Europe recently here is a very amusing clip from the BBC series “Yes Minister” in which Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker discuss Brussels and the notion of the UK trying to pretend that they are European. Also discusses why other European nations joined the common market in the first place.

With the departure of the UK from the EU there have been many questions asked about the future of UK trade. No longer having the free access to EU markets both with imports and exports does mean increasing costs for consumer and producer.

New Zealand’s Experience

A similar situation arose in 1973 when the UK joined the then called European Economic Community (EEC). As part of the Commonwealth New Zealand had relied on the UK market for many years but after 1973 50% of New Zealand exports had to find a new destination. However with the impending loss of export revenue New Zealand had to make significant changes to its trade policy. In 1973 the EEC took 25% of New Zealand exports and today takes only 3%. Add to this the oil crisis years of 1973 (400% increase) and 1979 (200% increase) and protectionist policies in other countries and the New Zealand economy was really up against it.

What did New Zealand do?

1. It negotiated a transitional deal in 1971 with agreed quotas for New Zealand butter, cheese and lamb over a five-year period, which helped to ease the shift away from Britain.

2. New Zealand was very active in signing trade deals of which Closer Economic Relations with Australia was the most important in 1983. The other significant free trade deal was with China in 2008. Below is a list of New Zealand’s current free trade deals and a graph showing the changing pattern of New Zealand trade:

With brexit around the corner it will be imperative that the UK starts to develop trade links with non-EU countries of which New Zealand might be one. The UK is the second largest foreign investor in New Zealand and its fifth largest bilateral trading partner.

Another good video from Paul Solman of PBS ‘Making Sense of Financial News’.

In his new book, “The End of Alchemy,” Mervyn King still worries that the world banking system hasn’t reformed itself, eight years after its excesses led to collapse. He states that it’s easy with hindsight to look back and say that regulations turned out to be inadequate as mortgage lending was riskier than was thought. Furthermore, you are of the belief that the system works and it takes an event like the GFC to discover that it actually doesn’t.

Paul Solman asks the question that a large part of the problem that caused the GFC was the Bank of England and the US Fed were not able to keep up with the financial innovation that was going on in both of these countries. King refutes this by saying that there were two issues that were prevalent before the GFC:

Low interest rates around the world led to rising asset prices and trading looked very profitable.

Leverage of the banking system rose very sharply – Leverage, meaning the ratio of the bank’s own money to the money it borrows in the form deposits or short-term loans.

Central banks exist to be lenders of last resort. Problem: Too big to fail. And that’s what began happening in England, just like America, in the ’80s and ’90s. There needs to be something much more robust and much more simple to prevent the same problem from happening again. King makes two proposals:

Banks insure themselves against catastrophe by making enough safe, secure loans so they have assets of real value to pledge to the Central Bank if they need a cash infusion in a hurry.

Force the banks to keep enough cash on hand to cover loans gone bad as during the crisis banks didn’t have enough equity finance to absorb losses without defaulting on the loans which banks have taken out, whether from other bits of the financial sector or from you and I as depositors.

He finally states that the Brexit vote doesn’t make any significant difference to the risks facing the global banking system. There were and are significant risks in that system because of the potential fragility of our banks, and because of the state of the world economy.

Below is a very good summary of events in the UK over the last week. A major point is how the advice of leading economists and organizations was ignored with regard to the remain campaign. It seems that the electorate were driven by emotion and therefore the thought of independence and sovereignty become very powerful. This is the first time that any nation has decided to leave the bloc, and questions about other countries participating in similar referendums have already been posed.

But what does the leave campaign’s victory actually mean for the global markets? How will the United Kingdom re-form itself, especially in light of Scotland’s likely call for independence?

The impact of Brexit on the New Zealand economy should be limited when you consider the following statistics:

3.5% of total exports from NZ go to the UK – mainly sheep and wine.

2.7% of total imports from the UK to NZ – mainly transport goods

6.7% of all short-term visitor arrivals come from the UK

When the UK joined the EEC (as it was then know as) in 1973 there was a major shift away from trade with the Commonwealth. However New Zealand has been able to move away from the traditional dependency of the Commonwealth to become increasingly integrated to the Asia Pacific region.

Reserve Bank of New Zealand

The RBNZ is a good position even with a record low OCR of 2.25% which paradoxically is among the highest in the developed world. By not being aggressive with OCR cuts the RBNZ has the ammunition to stimulate aggregate demand further which is in contrast to the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan who are in negative territory. With the turmoil in Europe over Brexit the US Fed will most likely hold off on a rate hike to ease the pressure on markets – it may even cut the US Fed rate.

Gold and Sterling – US$ rate

The graph below shows the reaction to the Brexit – GBP drops significantly against the US$ and gold, as a safe investment, appreciates in value. The uncertainty that surrounds Brexit saw more investors buy gold, which rose to about $1,315 an ounce on June 24th, up by 4.7% on the previous day. This was the largest increase since the global financial crisis in 2008. The rise was in stark contrast to the plunging pound, which tumbled to its lowest level in 30 years.

Below is video from the FT looking at Five Consequences of the UK’s exit form the EU.